Help me get up early.

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I have this job where I can come in anywhere between 6.30 and 10.00 but of course I have to work the same hours as everyone else. I always come in half asleep at around 9.30. I really wish I had gotten up at around 7 (no need to overdo it), had the time to eat a nice breakfast and drive to work leisurely and relaxed and then get home early, in time for Star Trek TNG, which comes on about 5, instead of being one of the last ones around in the office. I set two alarm clocks early, half an hour apart, but in the morning I just feel so warm, comfy and sleepy that I just can’t stop myself from staying in bed another hour or so, even though I know I will regret it later on.

Okay, I know I’m basically just a very lazy person, but can anyone offer any tips to help me get up earlier. Very loud alarm clocks are not an option, as I live in a shared house and the guy next door often works late and I don’t want to wake him up. This also scuppers the classic method of putting the alarm clock out of reach, as they are then not loud enough to wake me up. Going to bed early doesn’t seem to make any difference. Any help appreciated.

2

I get up at 3am every workday for a 3-hr commute into Wash DC - not because I have some plush gov job with all the trimmings, mind you. It is the only job I could find in the past year! I am going to the ends of the earth to stay gainfully employed while, probably, shaving years off my life in the process.

Now, that ought to inspire you!!! :wink: Just go to bed early by starting to wind down a little earlier at night - such as starting to prep for the next day the night prior a little earlier (like making a lunch). This will help you catch more zzz’s to get to bed earlier. Then, waking up won’t be so bad.

Remember, it can always be worse! You could be me! :smiley:

  • Jinx
3

First of all, numero uno, very important, must-do, no, really, I mean it:

GO TO BED EARLIER: People’s need for sleep varies, but generally speaking most folks need seven to eight hours of snooze time each night. The body will do whatever it can to try to get it. Trust your body! The flesh knows a darn sight more about how it operates than the spirit paddling around in the wetware. You can cruise along on five or six hours for a while, but your body will get crankier and crankier about it, and will refuse to let go in the morning. You have to be reasonably consistent about this, too, to reset your sleep patterns. Which brings me to my second point:

GET UP EARLIER: Yes, I know you regard this as the end, not the means, but trust me! I was once a subject in a sleep study which was looking at ways to overcome insomnia. The data that study gleaned indicated that one’s wakeup time was a large factor in determining one’s falling-asleep time. No doubt that’s related to my point one.

Unfortunately, resetting your internal clock means being consistent, which means getting up on nonwork days fairly close to the workday times. YECH! I agree. But that’s how it is, alas, I’m currently struggling to reset my own clock, and it’s miserable, I admit. :smiley:

ACCEPT YOUR INTERNAL CLOCK: You may simply be, not lazy, but a night owl. People really are naturally larks or night owls, and trying to change is hard. I’ve had to lark it at times in my life, and my inner owl was NOT happy. You may finally have to settle for being grateful that your job lets you accommodate your owlishness.

ADOPT A HUNGRY PET: There’s nothing like a pet demanding BREAKFAST NOW! by ramming a cold wet nose into your face to get a person out of bed in the morning. Cats are especially good at this; if the nose-ram doesn’t work, they have other ways of tormenting you to get their point across.

4

Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room, and keep the room temperature cold.

That way, when it goes off you will have to get out of bed to make it stop. The cold room should help wake you up.

It’s a matter of will-power at that point, though - you have to get in the shower instead of getting back into bed. I can’t help you with that :slight_smile:

5

Jinx: I feel for you, I really do. I’ll try and remember tomorrow morning that you probably think of 7 o’clock as a luxurious lie-in.

EddyTeddyFreddy: Going to bed early? Do I really really have to? :frowning: That to me just wouldn’t be worth it and then I’d rather accept my inner owl. Mind you, although I’m sure going to bed early would not harm the project, I find that on the weekend I have the same difficulty getting up at eleven as I did at seven, so I’m not sure that it comes from lack of sleep.

Beelzebubba: It’s a good plan, but I sleep through alarm clocks if they are too far away and not loud enough. But it’s worth checking with the guy in the next room if he’d be really bothered by a loud-ish alarm. As my room is en-suite I could even put the thing in the shower… :smiley:

6

Or even better! You could reroute your shower through a gardening timer that you can set to when you want, then all you have to do is sleep in the shower! You might also want to try getting a coffee maker with a timer on it, then putting it in your room with a hose going into your mouth in place of the carafe. If scalding coffee or cold water doesn’t wake you up, you might want to try a combination of the two.

Or, a little more on the realistic side, you could experiment with drinking certain amounts of water before you go to bed. If you get it right, you should get up to pee at a decent time, or at least be awakened by your clock only to think “damn, I need to pee”. This might work well with the smell of fresh coffee on your way to the bathroom… or IN the bathroom! :wink:

7

Ugh . . . I’m terrible at mornings too. I get out of bed, reset the clock (which is loud, and on the other side of the room), and then, no matter how many times I swear I won’t, I get back in bed. I wish I had any willpower. This is even true when I’ve had enough sleep. sighs at his weak little self

8

:: scolding mom ON ::

Yes, you DO have to go to bed earlier if you want to get up earlier!

:: scolding mom OFF ::

As to the weekends: Do you tend to stay up later on Friday and Saturday night? Or partake of activities and/or refreshments that might incline you to recuperate in bed the next morning? Just askin’ is all. :wink:

9

As with any habit, breaking it will require a bit of dedication. The absolute hardest time will be the first few days.

For the next several days, do not hit the snooze and do not even consider staying in bed. Do not make staying in bed an option. Just get up with the first alarm. Hit the alarm, and put the feet on the floor. Don’t even think about it. See if that starts to make getting up a new habit for you.

As someone else suggested, get up around the same time on the weekends. It helps to maintain a regular schedule.

If getting up into a cold room is the problem, get a programmable thermostat and have it make the rest of the place toasty warm for when you intend to get up. This will not only make getting out from under the covers more tolerable, it very well might make staying under the covers TOO warm.

6 days a week I get up between 4:30 and 5:30 and I haven’t needed an alarm clock in years. I wake up, and if it is around 5:00, I get up. Usually I’m not off by more than 10 minutes. On my “day off”, I’ll still get up early (by 6:30, usually) but the main goal is just to get out of bed. Sometimes that means just going to the couch, but the habit of getting out of bed is maintained.

10

Two hints, which got me through a year of starting at 6:30 am:

  1. nap. Nap. Then nap some more ! Schedule it in, and then when you are lying in bed in the morning trying to haul your ass out of it, you can be comforted by the thought of the nap you will have at 4:00 (or whenever). Even if you’re just lying staring at the ceiling the first time, keep at it: go lie down every day at 4, set the alarm for 4:20. No snoozing. Every day. It will take a while for your body to readjust to this schedule, but it will. (Note: don’t sleep for too long or you’ll wake up groggy and defeat the whole purpose. 20 minutes doesn’t seem like much but it makes a huge difference !)

  2. South-facing windows help a lot, there’s nothing like the sun to wake you up ! At the very least, make sure the morning light gets into your room. I had very tall, narrow windows with blinds that began about a foot below the top of the window: the sun in my eyes made sure I was awake whether I wanted to be or not, and it’s really quite pleasant !

11

Part of what keeps me in bed is the distaste of all the work involved in getting ready in the morning. I find that if I make my lunch, iron my clothes, and get my briefcase in order the night before, I’m more inclined to actually wake up and get out of bed when the alarm rings.

Also, I’m notorious for turning off my 2 alarms (yes, two) about a minute before they go off - doesn’t matter what time I set them for the night before. In college, I wrapped my alarms in masking tape. These days, I hide the alarm in the back of a drawer - I can still hear it go off, but can’t shut it off in my sleep. Plus, fumbling around with the drawer helps wake me up.

12

I’m looking over at my alarm clock with the “GTFU” post it stuck over the snooze button. Needless to say, I didn’t “GTFU”.

13

I have the same problem and I know it’s due to the flexible hours. On the odd day that I have to be at work by 8, say for a meeting or because I am catching a ride from someone, I can do it. Normally though, I wake up and sleepily rationalize that I don’t have to be in until 9, and wouldn’t I rather sleep a little lon…zzzzzzzzz.

Then at 5 I am cursing yet again because I came in late and now have to stay…sigh.

Can you schedule meetings or tasks for yourself earlier in the workday for a while until you get a new habit? That’s the only thing that gets me up. I am like you, it’s hard to wake up no matter how much sleep I have had unless there is something really driving me to get up.

14

My roommate in college had a similar problem (which sucked for me, having to listen to her alarm clocks ring every 15 minutes for an hour!). No matter when she went to bed, she couldn’t wake up.

Turns out she had some sort of sleeping condition that prevented her from getting a fit night’s sleep. I don’t remember the exact specifics of it–this was 12 years ago. Anyway, she went to a sleep clinic and they diagnosed her. Not sure what happened with it, but if you try going to bed at a time that would give you 8 hours of sleep, and find that you are still having trouble, it might be helpful to go to a clinic or at least talk to your doctor.

15

I have two alarms. One is on the other side of my bedroom, and is set for 6:00. The other is in the kitchen, and is set for 6:05.

But you do have to get enough sleep. If you adjust your eight hours to end when you want to be awake, your body will adapt. If you try to get up at 6 but keep staying up late, you won’t be able to do it. That’s just plain science.

16

Use a TV with timer or a radio on a news talk station to come on - music tends to be too relaxing while the sound of the human voice first thing will help make you more alert.

17

I agree that consistency is key. I find that when I get up at the same time everyday, I start to wake up before the alarm goes off. (As others have also said, you need to go to bed on time, too.)

Are you a coffee drinker? One little trick I used to use was to set my coffee maker to turn itself on a few minutes before I wanted to be up. That way there is the aroma of hot, fresh coffee competing with the warm cozy bed. There is also the knowledge that if you don’t get up you will be drinking (or throwing away) nasty, overcooked coffee.

18

Got a VCR or TIVO? Tape those Star Trek episodes at 5:00 p.m. and then watch them first thing in the morning. Set your alarm for 6:00, and as soon as it goes off, turn on that tape. Instead of having to drag yourself out of bed to do something unpleasant, you’ll get to wake up to something you really enjoy. By the time the episode ends (at 6:40 or so without commercials), you’ll be ready to face the day.

Adding this method to a consistent bedtime (even on weekends) has enabled me to go about two years now without ever oversleeping. Of course, my morning tapes tend to be crime shows like Law & Order or C.S.I., but I’m sure Star Trek would work just as well. Actually I did use Star Trek the other day – it was one of those “two part episode back-to-back” deals, and the first part ended right at my bedtime. I just taped part 2 and watched it the next morning.

19

Superglue tacks to your snooze button. :smiley:

20

Give yourself something to look forward to. Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to wake up when you’ve got something great happening that day? So, for a week, give yourself a special treat for getting up on time. Maybe something great for breakfast. A slice of chocolate cake, bacon and eggs, whatever. Maybe it’s stopping and buying yourself something frivolous. Just a treat. You can’t do that forever, but a week should help you reset your internal clock.

StG